Uber will use alerts, cash to aid electric-car drivers
Esther de Frutos of San Francisco loves driving her leased Chevy Bolt EV for Uber because it’s clean, quiet and avoids the high cost of gas, but she sometimes suffers from range anxiety.
“I feel bad when I have to explain to someone that I can’t drive them to Walnut Creek because I don’t have enough charge,” she said.
Now, Uber is taking actions to help her and other drivers of plug-in cars, after having held focus groups with many of them.
It’s adding an alert just for electric-vehicle drivers: a heads-up notice on trips of 30 minutes or more so they can decline them if necessary. (Uber already notifies all drivers if a proposed trip is over 45 minutes.) In addition, Uber’s giving monetary incentives to electriccar drivers in four cities: Pittsburgh, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco. It’s pushing the trip-length alerts, though not the cash incentives, in Los Angeles, Montreal, Seattle and Austin, Texas, as well.
The amounts vary by city. In San Francisco, Uber’s home-
town, electric-vehicle drivers will get $1 per trip from Uber. In Sacramento, drivers will get $1.50 a trip, $1.25 of that from the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and the remaining 25 cents from Uber.
“It’s hard to drive an electric vehicle for Uber today,” said Adam Gromis, Uber global head of sustainability. “Drivers spend a lot of time worrying about whether they can finish the ride without running out of charge, and a lot of time looking for charging stations and charging the vehicles. We’re taking basic first steps to make it easier.”
It hopes the incentives and updates will boost the number of electric rides in those eight cities from the current 2 million a year to 5 million next year — and that’s without even trying to recruit additional plug-in car drivers.
The ride-hailing company is also working to make sure electric-vehicle drivers know about all the federal, state and local incentives available to them.
Lyft, Uber’s crosstown rival, has also set lofty goals around electrification. Last year, it vowed to deliver 1 billion rides a year in self-driving electric vehicles by 2025. And in April, it announced it was spending millions of dollars on carbon offsets, which fund emission mitigation efforts. It now pays to offset every single Lyft ride. But Lyft has opposed a California bill that would require all ride-hailing vehicles to be zero-emission by 2028, saying that it would hurt lower-income drivers who can’t afford the pricey electric models. Uber is neutral on the bill.
Uber hopes to do more to boost electric-vehicle drivers by engaging in advocacy through membership in Veloz.org, a new California nonprofit seeking to accelerate the shift toward electric cars. Both Gromis and Lyft’s Sam Arons are on its board, along with people from utilities, car companies and nonprofits such as the NextGen Policy Center and the Sierra Club.
One big area to tackle: creating more fast-charging stations that cater to drivers’ needs. While many drivers plug in at stores such as Whole Foods, those parking lots close at 10:30 p.m.
“Drivers want to see more fast charging close to downtown and near the airport,” Gromis said. In fact, since most airports already have designated lots for ride-hailed cars, “They could be a really great next phase for this initiative,” he said.
The boosterism extends to the passenger side, too. Starting Tuesday, any U.S. Uber rider matched with an electric vehicle will get a notification saying as much. Uber will also offer in-car materials about electric vehicles for drivers who want them.
Riders are already cognizant when they get in an electric vehicle, de Frutos said.
“Passengers love the electric cars; they are mesmerized and ask a lot of questions,” she said. “I get good reviews with people saying it’s a cool car.”
Uber’s program is for any car with a plug because they have unique infrastructure needs, Gromis said. That covers full battery e-cars and plug-in electric hybrids such as the Prius Prime, but not ordinary hybrids.
“We’re encouraged by Gov. ( Jerry) Brown’s vision for 5 million (electric vehicles) in California by 2030,” Gromis said. “Everyone until now has imagined that those 5 million vehicles would just go to private users. We thought, ‘What if we imagine that some of those cars would be shared?’ ”